Sleeping Disorders

With sleeping disorders growing to epidemic proportions in our society, I feel that it is my responsibility as an oboist to offer up a unique solution to this problem, born of the countless hours I have put in to keep up my oboe playing. To that end I offer the following proposal as a boon to all insomniacs of every stripe and with every personality disorder.

My proposal is that we immediately establish “The Reed Channel”. The channel will be aired from midnight to 6 am. It will feature close-up shots of hands making oboe reeds. That is all that can be seen on “The Reed Channel”. The motto will be, “All Reeds All the Time”.

Music Insurance

Dear Ms Pianist,

We have received your claim for the malpractice session dated October 15th of this year. We are sorry for the trouble you are having with the Beethoven Sonata.

As you accurately stated in your letter, our payout to you has resulted in  our raising your premiums by 20% this year. We understand that as a musician you cannot raise your rates for performance or for teaching by 20% in a single year and still remain in business, but don’t you really think that that is your problem, not ours?

We have heard your argument before that raising premiums to pay for claims means that our company takes no risk, and that we get to keep all the money we have collected from you over the years. I assure you we do not keep it. We give it to our CEO’s and other executives.

We reject the argument you made that the premium money we collect  is like the “protection” money paid by small businesses to gangsters in the old gangster movies. Don’t you think that saying that premiums are like “protection” money  collected so that the gangsters will not hurt the business owners is carrying an analogy too far? However, we like a good analogy as well as the next guy.

You Balled Me on the Flies

It was one of those beautiful hot summer days when the light is so bright that every detail stands out in both the mind and the eye as if painted by a master draftsman. The car that pulled into the dealership was so long that it couldn't be moved from its usual parking spot when it wasn't being driven. Local pilots who used it as a landmark might get lost. It was a huge vehicle from the late 1970’s. 

There were the usual occupants of the car, a family in this case. But I also noticed there was a fly in the car visible from the showroom window. That was a fairly ordinary presence on these very hot summer days. The family got out of the car and came into the showroom to negotiate for a new vehicle. We worked out most of the details of the sale quickly, and everything was ready to go except for the value of the trade-in.

I was trained to deal with the hopes and expectations of the car buying public. There was the hope that the trade-in possessed some great power, the power to lift people out of poverty like the coach in the Cinderella story. Often, unfortunately, the trade had already turned back from an elegant coach into a damaged pumpkin. Or maybe there was the expectation that the trade-in would be a down payment on a new car, and not just a new car, but a new and more beautiful way of navigating through life. It was a tricky business. The car was somehow an extension of the person. Hopes, egos, and self-worth were on the line. I learned that one must tread carefully and gently when dealing with the trade-in.

There always seemed to be a sticking point in every car buying transaction, a “fly in the ointment," so to speak. In this case, it became shockingly obvious that there was more than just one fly in the customer’s car. A quick estimate from a safe distance put the number of trapped and circling flies at about twelve. And we’re not just talking about flies here, we’re talking about FLIES! These flies from hell were the size of juvenile pterodactyls!

    I did like my sales manager. When he was still a salesman, he explained to me some of his selling techniques and philosophy. He purposely dressed in very drab colors and thrift store clothing. He stooped and rolled his shoulders forward. He didn’t smile until a potential buyer smiled. He spoke slowly using simple language. He showed no emotion. For his fashion, he mixed dull plaids with duller solids, and he wore ties the color of dirt. All this to make people feel welcome and comfortable. I understood what he was trying to do. I also knew it was important not to react to things that seemed out of the ordinary when dealing with the public, like the presence of a nest of enormous flies whose dimensions rivaled those of the car they travelled in.

I did my best to take the presence of the flies in stride. I never mentioned them to the customer, but the fact was my sales manager eventually had to evaluate this enormous fly trap, and that meant he had to drive it. In the midst of my intense personal reactions to the idea of getting into the car with the flies, I felt it my duty to prepare him for the ordeal. I pointedly told him there were about a dozen flies in the car, and that they were large. He took this news in his usual bland and unfazed manor.

I watched in a state of apprehension as he approached the trade-in. Very, very slowly he walked around the car, not even looking at it, but opening all four doors  as he went. Brilliant! But it wasn’t working. No flies left the car. We waited. He waited outside in the heat beside the car, the usual bland expression on his face. I waited inside the showroom. Nothing changed. We waited.

While we are waiting for the flies to leave the car, I better give some background for this 40 year old incident from my car selling days, a career that came to and end in the 1980's. Commission selling is highly competitive. There are so many other dealerships and salespeople selling the same exact products. Some salespeople used questionable tactics. One of these was the "low-ball," a proposed selling price lower that what something could actually be sold for. To my mind, this technique prevented sales by generating ill will and bad tempers. The term "low ball" was often used as a verb in the industry. To "ball" someone was to give a number that was lower than reality. A salesperson who "balled" someone expected the customer to come back again to see if the car could actually be sold at that price. You can imagine what would happen.

But now back to the flies. Having waited for some time, my sales manager got into the car and drove away with all the flies as his companions. When he returned, he went directly to the sales office down the hall, speaking to no one. I pulled myself together enough to find my feet and followed him. In the sales office I discovered a changed man. He was red-faced, sweating, his bland expression gone. He was peering at the  write-up sheet for the sale as if he was looking for redemption there on its page. He looked up at me when I walked in.  “You balled me on the flies,” he said. I was shocked! He thought I low-balled him on the number and size of the flies. Was he going to be sick, have a stroke, drop dead on the spot? He got redder, rose from his chair behind the desk, stuck his head in a nearby closet, and made a loud retching noise. He then returned to his desk, resumed his “drab” routine, and looked as if nothing ever happened. This broke the tension and I doubled over laughing until it hurt. Fortunately, he did the same. The other sales manager came running into the office, saw us in that state, lost it himself, and fled from the office.

We closed the sale.  A closed commission sale is always a kind of rebirth for the sales person. The trade-in was sold to a used car shop. They did all their own mechanical work. They had their own tools, their own fly swatter, hopefully a pneumatic one. 

The sales manager fully recovered and returned to his usual drab colors and his aw-shucks shuffle. The customer drove off in a new car, their ego intact. Their amazing ability to live with giant flying insects went unrecognized until now. Their life was renewed with new transportation, and they left behind about a dozen gigantic flies, or was it more?

I wouldn't want to "ball you on the flies."

The Curious Business of the Pants

It was not my intention to go into the Pants Business, but this is how it happened in my dream.

I was out of work and walking down a street in Berkeley, CA., Telegraph Avenue. This is a section of Berkeley very near the University and thick with small shops of all kinds. I was holding a towel tightly around my waist because I was missing my trousers.

I looked first in one shop, then in another, looking at all the carrying bags for computers, pens and pencils, and other objects. I then went on to look at shoes. It was just at that moment that I ran into my old friend from the car business, Bill Albertson. Bill was one of my dearest friends from the days when we sold together on showroom floors. He was a loving, religious sort of person, a good friend, father, and husband. We had travelled together to Hawaii with our wives, having won a contest. Bill died of cancer very young.

Blalbertson, as we called him for short, looked great in a 3 piece suit. I asked him what he was doing these days, and he led me into a store front which turned out to be a warehouse inside. Bill said he had gone into the Pants Business, and asked me to join him. And, this is how we got the pants.

From a rack in the largely empty warehouse Bill took a gun, a very large Revolutionary War musket. We walked out into the street. Bill pointed the rifle skyward, and took aim. He then began to chant in a sing-song voice, and I knew that this chant must be done just exactly right. When he had completed the chant 3 times, Bill fired the rifle.

There fluttered down from about the third floor level a single pair of white chino trousers which eventually landed in the street. We retrieved the trousers. They were just what I needed. Then we made our way back to the warehouse, our aim fittingly accomplished.

A Delivery to Mrs. P.

When I was 5 and my brother was 8 years old, my parents bought a corner grocery store in South West Philadelphia and moved us from our idyllic boyhood home in Allentown, Pa., over the strong objections of my brother and myself. When we saw our new house, we had a case of "Hate at First Sight". Despite our cries of, "Please don't move here!!", we were bundled from the family Nash and deposited into our quarters above and behind the corner grocery store, a location that would become the setting for my boyhood dramas along with free lessons about religious and racial differences.

The business was destined to fail, doomed by the emergence of supermarkets. My father tried a number of occupations from insurance salesman to department store manager. My mother minded the store and the family until until she was released into her previously set- aside singing career by our subsequent move to Northeast Philadelphia.

One of the jobs that came with the store was "delivery boy". Our local customers called in grocery orders which my a brother and I delivered for whatever tips were forthcoming. A quarter was top dollar for a tip, dimes OK, nickels on the cheap side. One consistent quarter tipper was Mrs. P, who lived a short distance from the store. Mrs. P's orders usually consisted of one highly deliverable box full of groceries.

My first Winter time delivery to Mrs. P. required the following: thick socks, snow boots with buckles, trousers tucked in, corduroy trousers or thick jeans, a warm sweater or series of shirts, a bulky jacket, earmuffs and a woolen hat or a hat with built-in earmuffs, a scarf, gloves or mittens also clipped to the sleeves of the jacket. Upon reaching Mrs P’s house in all this paraphernalia, it was necessary to climb the porch stairs covered in snow and ice, balance the box against the doorway, and ring the doorbell.

When Mrs P opened the door, the smell that wafted from the interior of her row house was like a sledge hammer to the olfactory nerves. One barely stood one’s ground in the head-wind of that odiferous onslaught! A delivery to Mrs. P.’s house was not for the faint of heart or breath. It required a few seconds to compose myself, regain the ability to breathe, reacquaint myself with sensation in the legs, and recover from the shock, all the while maintaining a pleasant aspect for our customer. Taking all of this in stride out of an 8 year-old’s loyalty to our father (whose leadership, strength of character, and ability to be pleasant to our customers were legendary), I would plunge ahead into the house.

I had to traverse the complete interior of the house from the front door to the very back where the kitchen was located while the strength of the odor increased exponentially with each step forward. As if pressing against a tangible weight, I moved my sodden snow boots into the darkening gloom of the household, through room after room until I entered the kitchen where I finally beheld in the dim light the source of that unbelievable stench.

There, in the light of the farthest room in the house was a large cage and in that cage was a monkey, the source of the smell. Graciously, I exchanged small talk with Mrs. P., in the kitchen as my father would do with all the customers of our grocery store. Small talk, I say, not smell talk, a subject to be avoided like Bubonic Plague (which I might have caught). And after discussing the weather, the state of Mrs. P’s daughters or whatever (smell wipes clean all memory of conversation), I would beat a casual retreat as if nothing were amiss, and be rewarded with a quarter at the front door along with the sure knowledge that there would be an argument about which brother would brave the next delivery to Mrs. P.

Alien Abduction

My cat’s recent visit to the vet provides the setting for the classic alien abduction story. Just look at the event from his point of view.

You are sleeping peacefully in your bed when you are unexpectedly lifted bodily into the air by a force you cannot resist. As you slowly begin to come out of your sleep you realize that you are being placed into a confining area barely larger than your body with only small holes you can look out of to see what’s going on.

You resist. You stretch your limbs out to stop it from happening, but you can’t. You catch a glimpse of your captors on your way into the box. These cannot be the people you know and trust. These uncaring things, immune to your distress, must have replaced them. All this is so disconcerting that you have no way to interpret what is happening to you except that you have absolutely no control over it. Despite your vocalizations and protests and cries for help, your will is completely ignored. You have no dignity, no status as a sentient being whatever.

Your confining cubicle is then  lifted into some vehicle of advanced technological design which takes you away from your home. All of the surroundings, though you can’t see them well, smell unfamiliar. You are filled with fear and foreboding. You try to communicate with your captors again, try to convince them to stop this, but it’s useless. No one is listening.

Your cubicle is moved again into a different area. You hear the complaints and cries of fear from captives of your species and other species as well. As your own vocalizations increase to express your mounting terror, the cubicle is moved again. You are released into a new area which you have never seen before except in some memory that seems like a bad dream. You always wished that you would never see this place again. You are placed on a cold metal table. You are subjected to the unavoidable anal probe. Someone looks into your facial cavities. Your ears are drilled into by itchy devices, your mouth is forced open. Your teeth and gums are probed. Then some other stranger comes and whisks you off to another area where needles are stuck into your body that carry strange fluids, and you have no idea what is in them.

When you are finally returned to your home, those around you behave as if nothing has happened, that this is a normal day. Your recovery from this ordeal may require 16 to 20 hours of sleep, and later it all seems like a bad dream.

Kill the Messenger

I.

Once upon a time in the City, riding in the heart of the financial district, traffic was bumper to bumper. It moved not at all. The river of metal and glass, pumping out exhaust, noise, dirt and grit, was completely stalled, and for untold blocks an army of endless red lights held time frozen.

Enter the bicycle messenger. My delivery was on the 12th floor. As I reached my destination, I made a mental note of the position of the car caught in traffic directly in front of the building, along with the consternation on the face of the driver. Entering the building, I took the elevator to the 12th floor. I completed the delivery, had the paperwork signed, and called in to the office for my next destination. I came back down to the street, and there it was, the same car stuck in the exact same place for about 20 minutes. It hadn’t moved at all. The driver was giving me looks that could kill the messenger. 
   
All business, I mounted my heavy-metal steed and moved between the lanes directly beside his car, and then, unfortunately, it happened!  A species of Road Rage that infects Messengers. The once friendly messenger became the Messenger of Doom. A hot and dirty body, a mind overwhelmed by noise and pollution, compassion stretched, and too many Bugs Bunny Warner Brothers cartoons had come together in my mind. I puckered up my lips. I leaned over, and made a huge kissing noise in the unfortunate driver's window, like Bugs Bunny kissing Elmer Fudd on the head before escaping Elmer's "fwustwated fuwy."   The enraged driver rolled down his window to reply to this insult, but I dug out between the lanes leaving the poor man stuck were he was. He may be there yet, even though this was 47 years ago.
   
   

II. Another Mental Breakdown

One day I was heading for home from work on my bike in rush hour traffic. As usual, I had  to ride on just a few inches of street by the curb of an extremely busy multi-lane one way street. The cars beside me were dangerously close, and my attention was challenged by the need to stay out of traffic while balancing on a narrow strip of concrete.  And then, it happened! Horns were blaring, drivers were snarling, but my tiredness, frustration, and frazzled nerves overcame common sense and even self-preservation. In a gesture of reality-negating bravura, I rode away from the curb and out in front of a lane of the on-rushing river of metal and glass. Surprising even myself, I began to  weave back and forth in front of traffic in my lane, making everyone back up behind me unless they were willing to kill the messenger. I had practiced this weaving S-shaped curve riding my bike when I was 10 years old, and executed it perfectly. Fortunately, self-preservation gained the upper hand over bravura, and I went back to my curb hugging ways.

III. Bicycle Messenger Dream

   
I’m climbing a hill in downtown San Francisco on my 50’s bicycle. It has a heavy steel frame and balloon tires.This messenger service bike has rusted chrome handlebars. (I never would have tolerated this as a boy. My handlebars shone like mirrors!) The bike has an extra wide seat, a useless feature since, at this point in my life, I weigh in at 128 pounds. With an eighty pound weight in the front basket, that bike is going to throw me over those rusted handlebars if I hit a curb too hard.

In my dream I’m straining, standing up on the pedals, pushing with all my might climbing the steep San Francisco hill. I lean further forward, getting my nose closer and closer to the street. At some point, my weight and strength, the weight of the bike and the load, and the steepness of the grade all reach equilibrium. My forward motion stops. I fall. The bike crashes down beside me. I Iie there looking up at San Francisco sky.

 I’ve been at the job for some months now, and I have these dreams. The job allows me to retain full Hippie regalia, long hair, bell bottoms, sneakers, head band. There is no dress code. There are no drug tests. There is just bicycle, traffic, smog, noise, dirt, and deliveries. My bike wants to flip over forward from heavy loads. Traffic cops hate us. "Hit him," they yell at motorists, gesturing at us.
    

The traffic is intense for everyone. Motorists are irritated with us, this wandering Hippie tribe of the downtown mounted on old heavy-metal steeds, negotiating the congestion, slipping through lanes and up onto sidewalks to make deliveries. Drivers feel that somehow we are winning the traffic wars that they lost long ago,